Runa Reta - WISPA Squash Pro on Tour on www.squashtalk.com

Runa Reta - now part time on the courts and full time in the classroom (Photo © F Borchert)

When I decided to go back to school this January (to do a masters degree in political science), I was more than a little apprehensive about the prospect of entering back into academia after a 3-year stint of playing squash full-time.

Although the squash experience is a completely satisfying vocation, it’s difficult to say that the sense of fulfillment one gets from training and competing derives from any sort of extreme mental exertion. So in essence, my brain had done very little exercise (other than the occasional memorizing of new drills on court…does that count?) and I was nervous about my abilities to cope with my new setting.

When I brought this up to one of my good friend’s- who had recently finished her M.A. and therefore knew what she was talking about- she said (like the good, supportive friend that she is): “oh, you’ll be fiiiine”.

Then she chuckled, sighed (I imagine, at the absurdity of her comment), and added, “call me when you have your first breakdown”.

This was not a good sign.

It was also not fortuitous that I was entering school mid-way through the year, which meant that there was no “welcome to graduate school” phasing-in period. I was expected to know where everything was and how everything worked. And it was assumed that my brain had made the necessary adjustments from the initial initiation of the first semester. This was going to be quite a challenge. In my third week as an official student again here at McGill University in Montreal, here is a recap of how things have been going so far…

Week 1 (Introduction) – Find my way to class on time, pencils sharpened, dressed to kill. I’m brimming with a positive “I can do this” mentality. Students are all looking relaxed; it’s a small group, and the environment is casual. “I can SO do this”, I think. Then the professor comes in. Hands us the syllabus. 400-500 page weekly readings. 30-page paper due at the end of the course. Presentations. Discussion papers. My knees start to weaken (as I add up the estimated workload of all my classes combined), but I manage to push through the momentary dizziness and try to remember my mantra. Give me a few weeks and I’ll adjust. The key for now is just to lay low, and not let on to the fact that I’m a dumb jock. First question each professor poses the class: “so I’m dying to find out about you guys. Tell me a little bit about each one of you”. Damn. My cover is blown. The pressure to fool people into believing that I’m half-intelligent (one small step up from dumb as a board) has just gotten tougher. I better hit the books.

Week 2 (Classes)
Day1 - Somehow I have already managed to fall behind in the work. How is this physically possible?! I spend day and night plowing through dense material, trying to get my brain going. Unfortunately, the sudden shock of exertion to my brain has troubled it deeply, so the processing of information has turned into a slow and arduous ordeal. The work seems never ending.
Day 2-Classes and lectures start in earnest. All of sudden, these harmless looking, normal people start talking. And I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY’RE SAYING. I quickly scan the syllabus in the hopes that I accidentally did the wrong readings (which would explain why I’m lost), but turns out, I’m just lost. I spend most of the class with my jaw dropped in amazement at the complexity of arguments these students are making. I try to jump in by using some of the same vernacular that they so casually throw about, but it’s hard to use words like “miscegenation”, “tautology”, and “Teutonic civilizations” when you don’t really have a clue what they mean, or whether they have any relation to your argument. I make a mental note to go buy an English dictionary.
Day 3- I stupidly volunteer to do a paper and presentation for the following week. I see this as my one opportunity to show my classmates that I can keep up with them. Too bad, it’s going to take the next 5 days of my life to make this point.
Day 4 to 7 - I spend every waking hour doing the readings, making notes, formulating arguments and counter-arguments and structuring my paper. I ignore friends, food, laundry, exercise, and even (occasionally) bathing. This short 7 page paper has taken over my life! I’m coming close to a breakdown, but no, I can’t call my friend already. That would be lame. I have to keep pushing through. My mantra, what is my mantra? Forget it. I get back to work.
Day 7 to 9 – I finish my paper at a god forsaken hour, and barely manage to post it (online) in time for the others to now read. My eyes are bloodshot and I am in serious need of sleep, but I have no time to think about the prospect of each student meticulously combing through the finer points of my arguments and formulating insightful critiques of them. I have a presentation to work on. It’s got to be edgy, engaging, and the delivery has to be flawless. Too bad I suffer from extreme nervous tension whenever I do presentations. This too will have to be overcome. (By this point the mantra has switched from “I can do this” to “try not to look like an idiot”)

Week 3 – (Presentation day). Another sleep deprived night and I have again barely finished my work on time, and am now rehearsing my presentation in the shower. I haven’t left much time to practice (ie. shower time was my practice) so I’m going to have to wing it. I am so tired and ragged at this point that I have started not to care. But as I enter class, I start caring again.

A lot.

My mouth goes dry, my hands start shaking, and I can barely remember my own name. To make things even worse, I’m presenting alongside a PhD student, who has shown herself to be the guru of all knowledge (one of those who has the ability to stop a professor dead in his tracks and concede on a brilliantly thought out point that he himself had never considered). Plus, the presenter last week got chopped to pieces by the professor in a single comment that ruined her entire case.

Things aren’t looking good for me. PhD guru goes first and luckily she is violently ill, so she blanks out a few times and falls asleep once (literally, she paused for about 3-4 seconds, and then apologized for having fallen asleep momentarily!) and leaves the room promptly after having barely delivered her weak presentation.

Finally, the time has come: the next 20 minutes will determine my place in this exclusive scholarly circle. I have no choice but to just dive into this head first, with a pretense of unshakable confidence. And it works! From out of nowhere, I somehow manage to pull out this great, free flowing speech. I have the professor nodding, my classmates engaged, and I barely even have to look at my notes while I am talking. It ends, and I have survived. I feel the same kind of euphoria as the one you get from winning a squash match (minus the lactic acid). I have succeeded, I am respected by my peers and I am ready for the next challenge.

Although I’m thrilled about this minor achievement, I begin to wonder why am I so concerned about gaining the respect of my peers. Surely, this was not the case when I entered into my undergraduate degree several years back. Maybe, after 3 years on tour, I have started to believe in an outside perception of squash players as not being very bright. Whether this is an accurate perception or just the result of my own personal insecurities, I’m not entirely sure. Whatever the case, the challenges of this academic lifestyle are intense, but I am doing my best to keep up and at the same time represent for the squash community in letting the geeks in academia know that we can play ball on their terms too.